4 Replies - 38194 Views - Last Post: 13 March 2013 - 08:27 PM

Review index page

This is just the HTML and CSS of the site. I want to add some JS and JQ to it.

I want honest opinions, please. If you hate it please tell me why you hate it. I'm looking for this to be the best site I've made in the end.

I'm looking for ways to improve the site and overall design, there are no sacred cows in my design. I'm also looking for ideas to make it look awesome and amazing and to push my skills and talent to the limit.

I have questions as well

Does the page flow?
Is it easy to navigate?
What can I make better?
Where can I add Javascript or JQuery?

I have to be careful with scripting languages because I'm not sure how my client is going to maintain the site. If they let me maintain it then I can use PHP, if they are going to use Contribute then I'm limited some what. Be constructive in your critiques please and thank you.

Replies To: Review index page

Re: Review index page

Posted 05 March 2013 - 10:40 PM

Well, I would like to claim that I am no expert at site reviewing,nevertheless, here is my take on the website.

1. About your question about navigation, it is possible to answer that only after you have provided some kind of hyperlink that navigates to a different page...as of now...there is no such thing as navigation.

I would suggest you create separate pages for About, Services and Contact so that when any of the tabs are clicked, the user is navigated to the page.

2. I see that the 'contact us' button scrolls down along with the page and is a bit distracting...well, do you think that button is necessary?...considering that you already have a tab having 'Contact us'

3. There seems to be a lot of unused white space...you could probably look into filling that up with content.

4. And all your 'read more' hyperlinks navigate to the same page...you may want to look into that as well.

Re: Review index page

Posted 12 March 2013 - 04:44 PM

First thing's first.

1. Check Cross Browsering - I am using Firefox 19.0 and a lot of your items are out of alignment.
2. Colors - Bad color combination.
3. Watch the Bling - Basically, don't make it to flashy. If you make it to flashy, then people will be turned off.

First issue I see on visiting the site, the navigation is misaligned. The text is far too light, and the gradient is too overpowering for the area. The thing to remember about gradients is that they're a background element. Background elements are meant to accent the foreground, but if they pull attention away from the foreground elements they're not doing their job and need to be toned down accordingly. Really, I would do away with the bar there and make the font darker.

The banner font is a good choice, clean with good spacing. The light green color does not provide enough contrast to the background though, making it fade which is a really bad thing for a site title. A site title should be instantly visible, commanding, and clear. You have clarity, work on the other two.

The middle bar needs more bottom padding, the buttons and other elements don't fit in at all. If you can't think of a reason to put a box, don't. That area would serve well for a basic photo slideshow spanning the area, but make sure to use quality photos if you do.

The font on below that is far far too light, and the shadow on it makes it even harder to read. Do away with the shadow and darken the font to increase readability there.

The boxes are far too close, you have all that extra whitespace to the sides that you're not using that it can easily expand into. I would say that the black outlines are too overpowering as well, try a color a few notches off of the background for a better effect.

The footer is horrid. The gradient makes it a block of color, and the logo looks like you made it in microsoft word. Stick to the text and take out that box for a cleaner area down there. Also, decrease the margins separating the footer and the main content.

Add some light (LIGHT) paper texture or noise to the background, as it's a tad bit plain at this point. There are plenty of tutorials on how to add texture with taste.

jQuery? You should NEVER ask where can I put more of it, you should ask why do I need it and what does it even contribute. The only reasonable area I could see it being used is that banner area under the logo for a photo slideshow.

Right now the flow is bad, too many elements break the flow and detract attention from the actual content. Ah, another thing, never use lorem ipsum. Get real content so you know how it will flow with the page. You can't get a true feel for flow with random filler text. Put something relevant in there, like from their newsletters or other publications.

It needs a lot of work, but it can definitely be improved to a class page.

While grid designs are nice to use, you need to keep your code clean and indented properly.

Using inline style is a mortal sin in web design, move it out and use a class or an id where appropriate. Inline style will make it miserable to change something globally and is just plain bad practice.

Other than that, looks like a normal template that needs indentation work.